Saturday, 3 August 2019

POWER utility, Zesa has paid an additional US$890 000 to
South Africa power company Eskom, as it steps up efforts to clear its debt and
pave way for new power exports from the neighbouring country, an official
confirmed last night.

In an interview, Zesa Holdings acting group chief executive
officer Engineer Patrick Chivaura said the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)
released US$890 000 to Eskom on Monday. Eng Chivaura said Eskom had set certain
conditions for the country to start getting power and Zesa has since met all of
them and is expecting to provide a bank guarantee by Tuesday, which will
initialise the process of power supply to the country by the South African
power utility.

“RBZ paid US$890 000 to Eskom for the liquidation of the
debt that we have. Eskom asked us to meet certain conditions before the
resumption of power supply to the country. I am happy to announce that we have
met the conditions and we are looking forward to provide a bank guarantee by
Tuesday. This will initialise the process of power supply by Eskom. I am very
confident that the deal will materialise by next week,” he said.

Eng Chivaura said the new development will result in
significant reduction in load-shedding.

“Once the deal materialises, we are expecting it to
significantly reduce load-shedding. We will have power for more hours than we
are having now,” he said.

Eng Chivaura said Zesa was also engaging Mozambican power
utility, Hydro Cahora Bassa (HCB) to also startproviding power to Zimbabwe. If that materialises, it will provide huge
relief for the country which has already seen its generation capacity at Kariba
North and South going down drastically due to reduced water levels in Lake
Kariba.

“We are also engaging HCB to see if we can liquidate their
debt and also to see if we can import more electricity from them. We owe them a
lot of money and we want to see how best we can settle that debt and start
getting more power from them,” he said.

Last week Energy and Power Development Minister Fortune
Chasi confirmed that the South African government was considering a proposal
put forward to increase power exports to Zimbabwe after high level talks
between the two countries’ energy ministers.

Zimbabwe owes Eskom US$27 million, this is after a payment
of US$10 million, which it made last month as part of its commitment to pay its
debt. Additional power imports from South Africa will ease the prevailing power
shortages, which have seen the country embarking on a daily 18-hour electricity
load-shedding schedule. Sunday News